An Uchiha At Heart || SasuSaku

15. Mind Games

"K-kekkei Genkai?" Sakura repeated with a stutter, still trying to grasp control over her own body. She'd never seen eyes similar to those of the man before, or even read about them. What the hell was he going on about?

"With my Settoku, I have the ability to control your mind and thus your body as well. Call it involuntary persuasion."

Persuasion, huh? Whatever it was, Sakura needed to break away from its effects, and fast, so she started mentally analyzing the jutsu. Akio's words couldn't help but remind her of Ino's mind transfer jutsu, but this felt different. Perhaps it was like the Nara clan's shadow possession? There had to be a weakness.

"There's no point of resisting; you're completely done for." At the same moment the Kurookami man uttered those words, a loud rumble resonated from behind them causing the Earth to quiver beneath them and make them wobble. Sakura no longer felt the jutsu's effect and out of confusion, she looked back at Akio—and that's when she figured it out; though she fell back under the numbing jutsu again.

She robotically stood up as the blue eyes commanded, and to her despair, her own legs were leading her to the oasis.

The acid oasis, that is.

******************************************

Meanwhile, Sasuke battled fiercely against the rest of the masked men. He'd already put most of them down, so he was just dealing with the persistent ones that refused to give up. He was almost bored; since he just wanted to find Sakura and ditch the place.

They was strange though; the Kurookami. Their hand signs and powers, they were unlike anything Sasuke had ever seen. He easily had the situation handled, but the Uchiha simply hated being oblivious to such things.

He also hated that he still had no idea of his opponents' motives. Nothing about them added up. They had a sophisticated facility where they were clearly experimenting with humans, their jutsus were uncommon, yet their fighting styles were completely amateur. Just who were these guys?

"You might kill us now, Uchiha Sasuke, but you'll never get past Masahiro-sama. You and your people will pay for what you did sooner or later."

"And what exactly did "my people" do?" Sasuke asked, his voice even.

Bursting in outrage, one of the masked men bolted towards Sasuke and pinned him to the wall. Though the man's nose wasn't visible, Sasuke could hear his flaring breaths as the man tried to calm himself down.

"You destroyed everything! You and the rest of the moronic ninjas, with your pointless wars...everything is your fault!"

"Oi, Sadao! Shut your mouth!" one of the men yelled from behind. "This isn't the time for petty confrontation," continued the other.

Ah, so that's what this is about. The aftermath of the Shinobi World. These people probably had families that were victims of the destruction.

"So, what, you think you and your little clique here are going to fix all the problems between shinobi? By experimenting on innocent children? If so, then you're no different than the shinobi you so despise."

The man huffed at Sasuke's words, and a sly smirk played at his lips. "Don't question our methods, Uchiha. It's real rich getting righteous advice from a clan that has reeked nothing but the stench of death for decades now."

The raven-haired man clenched his jaw and gritted his teeth. He's heard worse before, but his clan's pride was always a delicate spot.

"Everyone around you always dies, and I'll make sure it stays that way, along with the rest of you ninjas!" A silver chakra gathered at Sadao's palm as he aimed it towards Sasuke, but it didn't matter because the swordsman had already stabbed him just as fast as the chakra appeared. The two men behind knew they didn't stand a chance against the Uchiha, but they attacked him anyways and reached their demise.

The dark man thought he'd seen plenty of peculiar things for one day, but then something weirder happened.

Someone's arm was breaking through Sasuke's chest. He looked up to see who it was, and his heart stopped.

"N-nii s-san?"